Lombardi and Landry

How Two of Pro Football's Greatest Coaches Launched Their Legends and Changed the Game Forever

De: Ernie Palladino

Narrado por: Stephen Bowlby

Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry could not have had two more divergent personalities. Yet, while working for the New York Giants of the mid-to-late ’50s under head coach Jim Lee Howell, the pair formed what stands, to this day, as the greatest set of coordinators on one team. Given their personalities, one might have likened Howell’s job to that of Dwight Eisenhower as the general struggled to control the egos and politics of his allied subordinates during WWII. But for some reason, Lombardi and Landry worked almost seamlessly, and as a result, the Giants rose to the top of the NFL.

In the five seasons they coached together between 1956 and 1959, the Giants appeared in three championship games, winning the NFL title in ’56.Both coaches would go on to NFL stardom, Lombardi with the Green Bay Packers and Landry with the Dallas Cowboys. But it was during their years as Giants coordinators that they developed the coaching philosophies they would employ later in their careers. For Lombardi, it was the reliance on the running game that started with Frank Gifford and would continue in the “Packers Sweep” days of Paul Hornung. For Landry, it was his own invention of the 4-3 defense that led to the “Flex” defense of his Super Bowl winners in Dallas.

How they developed their ideas, and how they were allowed to implement them, was a testament not only to their genius, but to Howell’s willingness to let them handle the strategic matters while he looked after the big picture. In Lombardi and Landry, veteran sportswriter Ernie Palladino takes an in-depth look at these two legends’ formative years in New York, offering up a vivid, revealing portrait of two brilliant coaches just coming into an understanding of their formidable powers.

©2012 Ernie Palladino (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"One of the best books I've ever read about this momentous era in Giants history." (Frank Gifford, New York Giants Hall of Famer)

great interesting story

What made the experience of listening to Lombardi and Landry the most enjoyable?

It was a great book , great story, and spoken well!! I LOVED the friendship and battles vince and tom had!

What did you like best about this story?

learning about Tom Landry!

Which character – as performed by Stephen Bowlby – was your favorite?

VINCE LOMBARDI

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

LAUGH and CRY!

Any additional comments?

NOPE!

Not What I Expected

I'm a big fan of non-fiction sports books, but this one was a disappointment. The concept is good. Landry and Lombardi were assistants for the Giants at the same time for several years in the 1950s. Lombardi was the OC and Landry was the DC. Afterward the two became all time great head coaches. The book however is mainly about the Giants during that period. There is very little about the interaction between the two. Although it does go into how their start here did set the stage for bigger things later when they became head coaches. It also showed how different Lombardi was as an assistant than he would be as a head coach while Landry stayed the same throughout. It was a short book (around 9 hours) and maybe the author was just hitting what he considered the most important points, but I found it lacking. The biography of Lombardi called When Pride Still Mattered was much better. The reader on this one obviously didn’t know sports and that resulted in some annoying things. A score of 24-21 was correctly read 24 to 21. However, team records like 9-2 were also read as 9 to 2 instead of 9 and 2. I’ve never understood why if the reader doesn’t understand the subject matter they don’t at least have someone in the room when the book is being recorded who does. His overall reading of the book was good, but this constant mistake was very annoying.